User blog:Mcdude man/An overdue update...
Its been a while since I posted about my adventures in Minecraft, but for good reason... I have been very busy mining and building! Now I know last time I mentioned I was going to do some exploring and hopefully finish my railroad on my treehouse map... But I ended up doing something else entirely. So I decided to play on the seed that I came across before that looked very promising and you can find that seed and the guide I wrote for it over on my user page. Anyway, so I enlisted the help of a friend, Buffalo, in creating our new settlement. Now, you may think I am being a bit cheap or even cheating by using the seed that I already explored and know where stuff is, but too bad I did it anyway. We started off by heading over to that chapel in the east and I immediately evicted the priest that was living inside as I took ownership. Funny thing is later I decided to try and farm sheep and the priest ended up getting inside the fence and for a long time basically lived inside a pen with sheep until one day mysteriously vanishing. I forgot to mention that while we did play on easy for a bit, we later moved to peaceful until just recently going back. Now back to the story. So we both knew the priority was getting wool to make beds, and luckily sheep were nearby and there were plenty. We put the beds on the second story of the chapel and after a while rested for the night. Our next priority was getting into the cave that has the diamonds! I led him to the special entrance and we gathered some ore and found the diamonds. Our joy was cut a bit short when we realised we still needed iron tools to even get them. So we mined a bunch of iron and brought it back to make iron tools. After that, we mined all the diamonds! I decided my chapel was getting a bit cramped for space, so I decided to expand it a bit and add a basement. Once I finished the basement, I thought a nether portal would be a good idea as well as a nice feature to add to the basement. So after letting Buffalo know what the plan was, we both ventured down below back into the cavern, bringing water so that we could turn the lava into obsidian for the portal frame. After some time, I finally mined enough of it to make the frame. Meanwhile, Buffalo had mined a large amount of ore and stone, and started to make his own shelter-area. It began as a small room just below the surface, with six furnaces on the wall to turn cobblestone into smoothstone. I finished the portal and went inside to find the nether not that bad (we are on peaceful anyway). The portal was made close to the bottom, so falling is not as big a deal and we can get lava for the furnaces pretty easily and fast. After a long time of building and having a small territory war with a big fence between our houses--his is now a large glass skyscraper. I tried to compete by building a huge treehouse by stacking jungle trees and then just bulding a block tower up so high it makes you dizzy... I have since abandoned it after a number of fatal events involving gravity. The giant tree tower still stands tall, lit up, it now serves as a landmark and beacon to help find our way back. So anyway, we had already located the stronghold and I suggested that we make a rail system to make travel easier. Buffalo agreed and construction began. I decided that the best spot would be in the lower basement in my house, on the 55th level (Y-Coord) after taking into a number of considerations, including possibility of accidentally tunneling into an exposed area above-ground, and the possibility of hitting a large cave system. 55 proved to be a good choice as it is not too deep that any future plans for a stop along the way is not hard, and not too shallow that a creeper explosion could penetrate it. After a LOT of digging... we finally made it! I opted for a 3x2 tunnel size, allowing for the track to be in the middle, and just enough room to walk, but not enough for an enderman to teleport into. This also allows for enough room on the side to stand off the tracks and allow any minecarts to pass freely. The next plan was to get a lot of iron and gold to create the tracks. So we mined and mined and I started placing track, with powered rails every so often. Once complete, we took it for a test run. Boy, is it nice! Later I think I may make a 'vacation home' up north. I am going to go for a classic log cabin. Not sure how big, but I wanna make it pretty cozy. I may even connect it to the main rail line... ----- Update: So we both made some vacation homes that... have since become basically our new homes. I still make trips to my real home now and then to access my storage shed, replace diamond tools, enchant things, and use the anvil. Buffalo has again, gone over-the-top with his 2nd house, and it is another huge tower that is starting to look crazy. My log cabin is very nice, and I am really happy with it. It feels very cozy, but well furnished. Will add pictures soon. Another big structure I designed myself, and as far as I know, is an original design. It is a virtical farm that looks like a strand of DNA from a distance. It is really cool. I also have made an easy-bake oven that has been handy in baking the huge amounts of potatos that I harvest as well as any ores. I put several lava buckets in the fuel box so it lasts a while. It may not be as fast as a large bank of furnaces would be, but it is really good for just having things cook while you do other stuff. Especially because it also maximizes the use of lava for fuel. The recent update that added horses also allowed me to expand the world size, so Buffalo and I aggreed it seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately it has really messed up the Nether portal system. We are trying to fix it. Something else that I constructed is a small melon farm that operates automatically. It isnt the most eligant design, but it gets the job done! Sadly though, I have found that melons dont really work good as food... But oh well. I will post pics soon I promise! Category:Blog posts